This invention relates to check-out counters for supermarkets and the like, and more particularly to new and improved check-out counters for increasing the ease, speed and economy in the flow of customers and merchandise through the establishments in which they are installed.
The very existence and purpose of supermarkets and the like is based on speed and economy in the flow of both merchandise and customers through the store. The lay out of such retail establishments and the equipment installed therein are designed to facilitate and promote the ease and rapidity of flow. Inspite of these efforts, however, serious bottlenecks continue to exist particularly at the check-out counter which is a frequent source of long and often irritating delays. In peak periods, in fact, the on line delays result in carts being backed up at the check-out counter into the store aisles, making it difficult for customers who have not yet finished shopping from moving with ease through the aisles positioned near the check-out counters.
One solution to the problem has been to install a larger number of check-out stations which is costly because of space and personnel requirements and is also limited by the amount of space available. Other methods involve the use of various apparatus at the counters involving special equipment and counter constructions which are complex, expensive and not always fully satisfactory.
In spite of the various proposals which have been advanced, the flow of traffic through supermarket check-outs continues to be one of industry's most fustrating challenges. With the advent of computer technology at the check-out counter, the use of scanning devices for price totaling, etc., has saved precious minutes from the totalizing process, but unfortunately has compounded the bottleneck beyond the scanner at the bagging stage. One such scanner-equipped check-out counter is divided into two approximately equal lengths. The cashier stands in an open area between the two lengths with the abdomen abutting the end of the first length, about one foot in back of a window scanner in the counter. The cashier, using a sweeping swimming motion, pulls items over the scanning window with two hands and sweeps them into two open bags standing on a knee-level shelf located between the cashier and the end of the counter. This system has proved to be efficient and the swimming motion has tested out as being the fastest and least fatiguing. In fact, everything about the method has gained favor, except for one very important deficiency which occurs whenever traffic piles up, and particularly when there is a flow of more-than-the-two-bag size of order. The cashier is no longer able to cope with the back up of merchandise and is compelled to resort to a time and space wasting tactic of halting all activity and lifting a ramp into the space in which she has been standing. The cashier must abandon bagging, and instead must pass the scanned items over the ramp either to be bagged by an extra, auxiliary (and costly) bagger or else the diverted items must wait at the end of the ramp until later bagged by the cashier. During this latter bagging operation, the cashier is occupied and is not free to continue ringing up items. Either alternative is bad and demands a remedy.
Coupled with the disadvantage of the above set-up is the fact that a customer, no matter how willing to cooperate in the bagging process in order to move out faster, is virtually precluded from helping. The customer can do nothing about bagging as the cashier engages in the "swimming" motion of sweeping items into bags, nor can the customer do an appreciable amount of bagging, if any, at the point where items are being directed remotely from the cashier over the ramp.
These difficulties do not confine themselves to markets with scanning devices. In a conventional supermarket, particularly the great majority where costly auxiliary baggers are not employed, all ring-up activity stops, and the other customers waiting in line must wait while the cashier locates a spot on the crowded counter to bottom a bag and fill it from the jumble of items surrounding her. There is no provision for an open bag or bags within a conventional check-out counter into which the cashier can sweep items simultaneously with her ringing them up and certainly there is no such facility for a willing customer to do so. As a matter of fact, it takes considerable doing even to find an empty bag which, because of inadequate counter space, is hidden somewhere under the rear of counter. Even after the bag is found, further difficulty is encountered in finding a place to sit it down on the crowded counter, where one hand must hold the bag erect as the other hand fills it.